Tag Archives: Health

I’ve been trying to write this post for a week. I keep thinking, “I need more information, first.” Well, I’m never going to have all of the information. Here’s my starting point:

[[WARNING: This post is going to be LONG. And personal. Proceed with caution.]]

Anyone who knows me knows I’m a little bit crazy. We’re all a little crazy. I know that. But I’ve always been kind of crazy. A lot of people have called it a lot of names over the years. In high school, I had boys tell me I was “psycho.” Friends try to make me feel better by telling me “it’s all that creativity!!” Doctors have called it anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, and ADHD. “Intense” is a real common descriptor for my personality. Whatever you call it, it all feels the same to me: it’s like electricity in my veins. It’s an energy I don’t know how to control. It’s over-flowing emotions and irrational ideas.

I have spent the majority of my life attempting to manage… this. Whatever the hell “this” is. But now… now my boy is a little crazy, too. My mom tells me that he is “exactly like you were at this age.” I love that she can see me in him, but then I immediately fast forward twenty-something years and think, “HOLY FRIJOLES! I don’t want THIS for HIM!!”

And then, out of nowhere, there seemed to be some light in the tunnel.

I don’t dare jinx it and say “light at THE END of the tunnel,” because, quite frankly, I have no idea how long this tunnel is. For me, this tunnel has been about twenty-years-long. But as I was saying:

My email dink-dinked my phone at lunch last Thursday. It was my mom. The subject of the email was the title of an article she wanted me to read: The Gluten Made Her Do It: How Going Gluten Free Saved my Daughter’s Mental Health. WTF? Really? “I’ll read this later,” I thought. But then I got anxious about it. Kind of butterflies-in-my-tummy about it. I HAVE TO READ THAT ARTICLE!! So I came straight home after lunch and rushed my Little Bubbie off to nap-land and opened up my laptop. And I was fascinated. Completely intrigued. Was this the answer all along?

For those that don’t want to read the article referenced above, that’s okie-dokie. It’s long. I get it. Let me summarize it for you: This lady’s little girl was… intense. She had huge tantrums (not just two-year-old-tantrums), she didn’t want to be hugged or snuggled, she got completely out of control for no reason. She was just like my little babe, and exactly like I was at their age. So what did she do for her sweet-little-girl-turned-monster? She removed gluten from her diet.

I immediately started thinking about all that I knew about gluten-intolerance. My grandmother had a false diagnosis for Celiac disease for 8 years. I was all too familiar with a gluten-free lifestyle. But what would make that mom remove gluten from her physically-healthy-but-a-little-crazy baby’s diet? I set off to ask Google. And Facebook. And Pinterest. I asked friends and family and total strangers and search engines: WHY? What’s the link?

Wanna know what I found? I found that it makes total sense. I found that parents of Autism-spectrum children often put their kiddos on a Gluten Free Casein Free (GFCF) diet. I found that there’s something called Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS) and these folks also benefit from a gluten-free diet (among other things). I found that a physical reaction to gluten isn’t the only way that our bodies can be intolerant. I found that it sure as hell couldn’t hurt to give it a shot.

So, all that being said, I have spent the last week reading EVERYTHING I can get my hands on that relates to going G-Free. I’m currently reading Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s The G-Free Diet: A Gluten Free Survival Guide (only $2.99 for the Kindle version!!) and it has been really informative. She addressed gluten intolerance from an almost strictly Celiac perspective, but the information she offers about the diagnosis of such conditions in America is enlightening. These problems are so much more widely diagnosed in other countries, but just as prevalent here as they are in the rest of the world. Why aren’t they being diagnosed in America? Because there’s no money to be made on a gluten intolerance issue. All you do is change your diet. No pills, no supplements, no therapy. The pharmaceutical industry doesn’t make a dime. So doctors don’t diagnose it. It’s more profitable to diagnose something else that DOES require a pill. Even if it’s the wrong diagnosis.

I have been in the process over this past week, also, of overhauling my house, namely my kitchen, to prepare for a g-free transition. I’ve been continuing to feed my family glutens and observing behaviors even more carefully. Sunday is the transition day, though. We will make the full switch this Sunday and I will continue to update you all on our progress.

The purpose of this [incredibly long] post is dual-sided. One: I want to inform those around us of what’s going on in the simplest manner. I’ve talked to a lot of friends and family about our plans and what this means for us, but I know that there are other people in my life that would benefit from this information or simply might find it interesting. The second purpose is this: if you have found yourself in my shoes, would you mind offering up any advice you think might be useful to me in this transition. As the mom, I’m responsible for all the things my family eats… and I’m also responsible for making them taste delicious. My boy is terribly picky, so I’m nervous. But I know a lot of people have gone before me on this, so I’m hoping for some good insight. I’ll keep up my search and let you know if I find anything super interesting, too, m’kay?

NOW, ALL OF THIS BEING SAID, I MUST OFFER THIS DISCLAIMER: I am not a doctor. The information presented in this post is merely a discussion of the things I have found to be true for other people, like me, looking for an answer to an invisible illness. Take what you’d like from it, but you should obviously talk to your doctor before making a dietary change this drastic.

Here’s the deal: it had been a few days since I posted, and then my Angel Baby ended up in the ER the same weekend my MIL was admitted to the hospital. We had a pretty rough go of things for about 10 days while Bubbie fought through hand, foot, & mouth disease. Goodness sakes. I felt so bad for him. Every one of his little toes had blisters all around and between them and he had ulcers in his mouth and down his throat so it hurt to eat or drink. Needless to say, that week and a half destroyed all of the progress we had made with getting rid of bottles and binks, as well as the talk of potty training we’d been working on. Oh well… I’m not in any hurry for him to grow up anyhow. <3 So… we got all better and I got around to completing a project I’ve been dying to do for a LONG time… but I couldn’t blog about it because the project was a gift for my brother and I didn’t want him to see it before I gave it to him. Well, his birthday was last Tuesday and he’s had is gift since Easter Sunday. Again… whoops.

Sooo…. here I am. I am finally going to catch you up on what’s been happening around here (aside from nasty childhood diseases) and walk you through my handy dandy glass etching tutorial. Let’s do the tutorial first!

Super Duper Easy and Fun Glass Etching

Glass etching is my new favorite thing. Okay, I have a billion favorite things. This is just the newest one. Here’s what I started with:

— Glass to etch on (pictured above is a Pyrex bowl I did, but it’s not the piece I used for the rest of the tutorial. Sorry. I forgot to take a picture of that one before I started.)

— Vinyl

— A bottle of Armour Etch and a crappy paint brush

The first thing I did was use my Silhouette to cut a couple shapes out of vinyl. I think there’s stencil vinyl specifically for this. I had a roll of white on hand so that’s what I used. Weed the vinyl so you “trash” the shape (positive space) and keep the outline (negative space). I use contact paper to transfer my vinyl, but again, I there’s transfer paper specifically for this purpose. My brilliant friend Sarah uses Press & Seal Saran Wrap. I didn’t believe her until I saw it and tried it myself. She’s amazing. Anyway, this is that my “sticker” looked like before I put it on the mug:

And this is the part that I hate: throwing away the “good” part.

Not gonna lie–these guys moved from my wall onto my back patio door… where they’ve lived for three weeks now. :)

Anyway, once you get your shapes placed just right (I used the ruler here) press them down and make sure to get a good seal around the inside where you will apply the etching cream.

Once you’re happy with the placement, you’ll apply the Armour Etch. (NOTE: This is an acid etching cream, so you’ll want to be careful to avoid contact with your skin.) I put the cream on pretty thick and waited about 5 minutes, then rinsed it off. I wanted to make sure I got a good etch, so I dried the mug and reapplied the cream and waited another 5 minutes. I probably didn’t need to do that, but since it was my first attempt at etching, I was worried. :)

And there you have it. Done!

I was very happy with the way this turned out, and the birthday boy thought it was pretty neat, too. Don’t ask about the dinosaur vs. bear thing. I honestly don’t remember how that all started. I just remember something about my brother and my husband arguing about who would win in a fight, and Hubby suggested these shapes when I was trying to think of what to etch. I love it.

Now for the catching up…

I feel like I’ve been working working working… and yet I feel like I’ve done nothing. I think the problem is that I don’t have much to show for progress. I have been doing crazy amounts of yard work lately. We live in a north facing house with mature trees, so we have a great deal of shade to deal with. Add that to a greyhound/lab mix that runs faster than lightning and you get ruts in your grass and lots of patchy places… not to mention a desire for beautiful flowering plants and not enough sunshine to grow them. It took me two weeks of 20 minute trips outside with Bubbie to get all the flower beds weeded. It wasn’t until the last bed that I realized he is actually a great helper if he has his own shovel. Such a sweet boy. <3 Anyway, I settled on hostas for the front yard and got them planted this week. I picked up some seeds tonight for my one sunny bed and they’ll go in tomorrow.

I’ve also been doing a lot of planning. I’ve been working on Scentsy stuff and my Etsy shop, and I find a lot of joy in that. I can’t wait to post more projects. Remember my Sesame Street Blankie? Well, there will be more of those soon! And maybe even some new typography prints.

I love Dr. Oz. LOVE him. He motivates me and informs me… and inspires me. Some people don’t share my feelings for him, but that’s okay… more for me! :)

Today I was watching his show about addictive foods and the dangers of a food addiction. Everyone knows about nicotine addiction or alcohol addiction (and the negative connotation surrounding them) but the people in Dr. Oz’s audience today were actually arguing over whether or not food addiction is possible. Of course it is (in my opinion). I believe we can be addicted to just about anything. TV. Video games. Activities. I think at one point in time I was actually addicted to crying. I know, without a doubt, that I am struggling with an addictive relationship with food.

I’ve stumbled upon a couple of blogs lately talking about food and wellness, and most recently it was Lisa Byrne’s weekly newsletter (delivered this morning) that really spoke to me. Dr. Oz’s 4 Most Addictive Foods (linked in the photo above) are listed as: sugar, chocolate, meat, and cheese. Lisa’s list of dangerous acid-forming foods are listed as: caffeine & soft drinks, sugar, white flour, and meat and meat products. Is it a coincidence that the lists are nearly identical? Probably not.

Over the last few months I have been struggling with a terrible tummy ache after just about every meal. The worst time of day is following dinner. I haven’t been able to figure out just what the problem is, but I’ve decided that it’s time to get to the bottom of it. I went vegetarian for a while (August-October) and I’ve never felt the same since then. I felt fine going into the transition (I went vegetarian for ethical reasons rather than dietary) but since then my body seems to have a hard time digesting anything–not just meat.

As a result I have decided to start eating differently. I plan to cut my sugar and soda consumption WAY back. I plan to only eat meat that was ethically raised (Lisa’s disclaimer on adding meat to her list) and add in a whole lot more fruits and veggies. I’m afraid that my tummy could be mad at wheat & wheat products… but I’ll cross that bridge after this one. I’m hoping these changes will fix me right up and it’s not gluten at all.

Either way… I’m looking for help from you guys. What do you eat to be healthy? Where do you get your sweet-but-not-sugar-loaded fixes? I have a giant sweet tooth and that’s what scares me most about this. And how do you dress up your veggies? I’m excited and nervous for this venture all at the same time. I just have to do something…